Ya know, so many people have so many questions about Evolutions, I thought I’d cover a couple quick questions about them.

-What is an Evolution?
It is an assessment of what a student has been taught over the last couple months of information. I specially don’t use the word “test” because it does not bring the same stress of a test, and it is more fun than any regular class. In short it is like a 2 hour mega class for my adult students and a 45 minute test for my youth students.

-Why do we go through Evolutions?
Bruce Lee was against belt systems… no doubt about it. However, Bruce was fighting against the superficial belt ranking systems of non-functional arts and styles at the time. Whether you get a yellow belt or brown belt in stuff that does not work… it is still “stuff that does not work”. This does not mean Bruce did not believe in a ranking system… quite the opposite. Bruce Lee had ranking systems for his students in Jun Fan, Gung Fu, and others (source: Dan Inosantos video interviews in his series “Definitive Inosanto Collection, 1999″).

Just as Lee and Inosanto, I too wanted to make sure we take the positives of a ranking system, but exclude the negatives. What are some of the positives? Here is a short list:
*Show student progression
*Give measurement of student growth
*Class and student organization system
*Personal growth/goal tool
*Curriculum organization

Some of the negatives (especially in this day and age…), plus EDS’s stance:
*Trap to renewal: Our membership renewals have nothing to do with promotion
*Mega money maker: Our youth fees for evolutions are free because youth classes cost higher per class as compared to adults, and youth evolutions happen within regular class times. Adult fees are a fraction of most school belt tests, and patches and next color t-shirts run the student no extra cost. In addition each written test is hand graded, and physical test gives written individual feedback or strengths and weaknesses.
*Everyone must test, or you are out of class: Our evolutions are optional. They are for your growth and progression.
*Incomplete: At EDS each student must pass 4 separate cycles (3 month testing periods) in order to pass onto the next level. It is rare that a student is incomplete when they rise to the next level.

I’ll see if I can answer some more questions about Evolutions in a couple days, so check back.

Completely a non coincidence, but I just got done writing about zigging and zagging, and had to do some yesterday. Had a less than good diet weekend this last weekend, plus Iâ€™m nursing an injury I had last Wednesday. So, I decided to do a 24 liquid fast, of just water and protein shakes. I decided to stick with the protein fast, instead of an all out food fast because my body needed some major recovery from some serious training over the last couple weeks.

See it as either fasting to cleanse (using mainly water or green veggies) or fast to recover (using water and protein shakes), if you want to simplify how I look at things. One quick note before I get into the details: All protein shakes are not made equally. Iâ€™m still looking for one to preach about, but for now, just make sure you read the back of the bottle. I used two kinds yesterday. One was more of a â€śrecoveryâ€ť formula, while the other was more of a meal replacement.

Whenever you fast, make sure you take in at least half of your body weight in ounces. I consumed around 32 by 10am. Other than that, I had protein shakes at 8am (recovery), 11:30am (recovery), 4pm (meal replacement, as I would not have another one for about six hours given my teaching schedule), and then at 10pm (recovery).

I thought I would be searching for my sniper rifle and a bell tower by lunch, but everything went smoothly, and I didnâ€™t feel completely hungry until around 4:30pm (that was also around the time my family started getting ready for dinner). When I did feel the need to hijack a pizza delivery car, I would just down more water. By the end of my day, I wasnâ€™t feeling that bad, even when I got home from teaching around 9:15pm. Iâ€™ll talk more about this next week, as I have more to share.

Coming off of a weekend of horrible eating? Did you hit back to back birthdays of some co-workers where pastries and desserts abounded in the break room? Want to get back on tract AFTER the sinning?

Easy. Fast for one full day, making sure you drink at least half of your body weight in ounces of water. If you weight 200 pounds, that would be 100 ounces of H2Oâ€¦ as a minimum. If you canâ€™t cut that simplicity given your busy-hectic-super physical job, than have mixed vegetable soup for breakfast, lunch and dinner. No crackers, no juice, no fruit, no-nothing. Water and vegetable soup (optional).

Why? After 2-3 days of falling off the wagon, it is important to do two things: Get that high amount of garbage out of your system, and super re-hydrate. Will you be hungry at breakfast drinking only water. Yes. Will you be â€śstarvingâ€ť by lunch, yes, so drink extra water and stay busy to keep your mind off of your favorite drive thru. By 6pm, some people may actually agree to trade their car or children in for a hamburger or handful of chipsâ€¦ Hold on, donâ€™tâ€¦ hang in there, the day is almost over. Guzzle another 16-32 ounces of water.

My advice is to make sure you have a planned day of stuff you need to get done. Putting off a report due next week, do it that day. Need to clean your basement, block out 2-3 hours and get it done. Schedule a walk with a dear friend youâ€™ve lost touch with, have board games ready to play with the kids when they get home from work and do one activity you love (hobby, low energy outdoor activity, watching favorite movie of all time with your spouseâ€¦ but do not grocery shop!).

The next day you might be tempted to have another bad day which got you into having to fast in the first place, but make sure you have a sensible menu planned, high in protein and very, very light on white carbs and sugars (if any at all). Planning is the key youâ€™re seeing again and again for a good reason. Making your decisions in advance to escape temptation and flow from one part of your day to the next without getting stopped by micro managing your life (which if anything leads to wasting time) is your goal.

You donâ€™t have to do this if you eat well six days of the week, and have one cheat dayâ€¦ this is done if you end up cheating for half of the week, or have a full vacation of cruise style buffets which overload your system with unhealthy food. Remember, zig and zag. Donâ€™t throw in the towel if you fall off the wagon of a healthy lifestyle â€“ outside of your designated cheat day. If your cheat day is Saturday, which actually lasted till Monday, fast on Tuesday, and get back to your regular healthy schedule on Wednesday. Simple, done.

Fighting: Trying to find a way to post a weekâ€™s diet with little luck on this blog. Iâ€™m trying to post a pdf of it, and it is not workingâ€¦ So, Iâ€™ll talk about the Zig and Zag. It was an idea which a mentor taught me a while ago with regards to balancing out your diet. It is easy, simple and we can do it with our kids and ourselves when we think weâ€™re going to have a tough diet day on a vacation weekend, friendâ€™s party or upcoming holidays like Halloween or Christmas when we know weâ€™re going to be eating poorly.

Zig and Zag relate to preparing and recovering from bad diet daysâ€¦ Not weeks, but days. If you want something to recover from bad weeks, you might want to re-examine your diet and goals. Eating well is a weekly commitment where we canâ€™t afford to take regular weeks or months off. I keep on using the word â€śdietâ€ť which I actually hate, but if you are serious of healthy changes, it has to be a change in lifestyle, or the way we eat regularly (i.e. our “diet”).

Back to Zigging and Zagging. If you know youâ€™re coming up to a weekend where sweets and fatty foods will abound, take Wednesday and Thursday to prepare yourself for Friday and Saturdayâ€™s temptations. How? Here is an idea:

Breakfasts: Add more protein to account for the carb loading youâ€™ll probably do.

Lunches: Do not eat any fast foodâ€¦ Focus on a huge salad with little dressing.

Double workouts: Do a pre and post work â€“ workout. Not like triathlon cardio killing workout, but two workouts instead of your usual one. Thirty minutes of walking in the morning, and 30 minutes of weight training at night. Take a walk outside during your lunch break and DVR an aerobic workout show for later on that night. Once again, the focus is not to double your workouts, but workout at two different times to increase metabolism.

Dinner: Make 75% of your dinner veggies. Small portion of (wheat) pasta or meat, with 3-4 sides of veggies.

This will help lessen the impact of the two â€śbadâ€ť days youâ€™ll be pigging out. Think of it as earning your two â€ścheatâ€ť days. That to me is ziggingâ€¦ preplanning to lessen the setbacks two bad days can have on your results. Iâ€™ll write about zagging next weekâ€¦ what to do after we have a bad couple days of eating.

Family: Steph and I had a good weekend meeting about our parenting, and what we need to improve upon. Not judging each other, but giving solid feedback on how we need to adjust our strategies as our kids grow and mature. When they move out of a certain age, they need to move into a new parenting style many times. If you keep on treating your 8 year old like a toddler, they will act and mature like a toddler.

Faith: You gotta check out what Iâ€™ll be writing next week on faith and sex. Weâ€™ve had a good run of sermons at our church on this topic, and it is so important. Very urgent of youâ€™re single, married, parents, divorced, etc.

Here is another entry from www.MattNumrich.com, where I talk about the three passions in my life – Fighting, Family and Faith:

Fighting: Iâ€™ll give you a break on the diet and training stuff this weekâ€¦ as I will post a full week of diet examples next weekâ€¦ promise. The one tip I will give you, is something I learned years agoâ€¦ ask yourself this question before any kind of food crosses your lips: â€śWill this food cleanse or clog?â€ť. Water, cleanse. Beer, clog. Salad, cleanse. Hamburger, clog. What about Doritos? Clog. Carrots? Cleanse. Want to muck up your system, consume these: donuts, soda pop and pizza. Want to cleanse? Eat these: Beans, baked potato and almonds. You have a choice everyday, every time you eat. Your food can either prepare you for your days needs, protect you against sickness and energize youâ€¦ or it can drag you down, lead to serious health concerns and even poorly role model for you kids. Choose wisely.

Family/Faith: I decided to pair these two topics together today, and relate them directly to the diet tips I gave you in the â€śfightingâ€ť part above. If you want to truly challenge yourself, and build solid core character traits which will steer you from a lot of painâ€¦ Ask yourself, â€śWill this action/behavior/thought help me to become a better father/mother/person/child of God?â€ť. Super simple, but super challenging, as we all act and think in ways that donâ€™t serve us, our purpose in life and honor God. The challenge is can you stop those things that donâ€™t serve the greater good, and focus on things that move us towards being a better person and contributor to society?

Here are two recent posts on my www.MattNumrich.com site, where I cover the main topics in my life: Fighting, Family and Faith…

Fighting: (I’ve been blogging a lot about my diet…) Stephanie my wife is being the guinea pig for our experiment, as weâ€™ve been hearing a lot about taking 30 grams of protein within 30 minutes of waking up for faster fat loss. She is a vegetarian, so getting her protein has never been easy. To make it easier, she is taking a protein shake as her supplement, and also working in eggs and protein bars every once in a while for a bit of variety. Iâ€™ve been doing the same thing, mainly for muscle growth purposesâ€¦ Iâ€™ll report our results here soon.

Family: Here is a lesson for youâ€¦ in the past I used to get angry and worried when worked slowed downâ€¦ now I use it as extra family time. I know, big break through there. However, I found myself complaining that I didnâ€™t have enough family time when work opportunities would explode, but then also get frazzled when work slowed down. Now I do what I can with what I have. When work heats up, I work harder, and give myself some grace when I miss spending extra time with the kids. When work slows down I know it is time to reinvest in my kids, which is what I did last weekend. The couple weeks before had me on the run, missing valued dining room table dinners we have every night, and lessened time I was around on the weekends. This last week, work slowed to a standstill, so I took an extra day or two off, and committed it to my sons. Life is a balance, and if you donâ€™t go with the flow, and use what you have, youâ€™ll not just miss out on work opportunities and family time, but complain when you have access to either gifts.

Iâ€™ll give you a break on the diet talk this week, and come back next week with more details. Training wise, all is going well. Martial arts, weight lifting, cardio are all on track with some good challenges. That is a good way to see your training, whatever it is: â€śHobby/activity/sportâ€ť, weight training and cardio work.

If youâ€™re a rock climber, your training would be rock climbing, along with weight lifting and cardio work to support improvement in your hobby-activity-sport. For me it is martial arts, but for someone else it maybe basketball, so theyâ€™re on the court doing agility and shooting drills 2-4 days a week. This â€śtriadâ€ť gives you balance in your training, while developing all three sides for your performance: Skill, Strength/Power, Endurance/Conditioning.

My goal is to continue my diet from Sunday night to Thursday afternooon, with no restraunt food, unless I have some sort of business meeting. Where I did let myself go this last weekend was sweetsâ€¦ so Iâ€™ll get back on track with knocking those out during my weekdays, and setting boundries for the weekend.

Here is a sample day for my eating this week, just to once again, give you an idea: